William Lashner - Marked Man

“And how are you so certain?”

“Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,” I said. “She knew nothing about Chantal’s family life, her friends or uncles. When Monica mentioned Chantal’s cousin Ronnie, the cousin who was like a sister to Chantal, she didn’t know who that was. She tried to fake it, but Ronnie’s not a he, she’s a cute little blond girl who might have been the most important person in Chantal’s life.”

“She’s repressed most of her early memories.”

“Give it a rest, Teddy. She didn’t know anything that you couldn’t have known to tell her. And then you had her blame the wrong guy. Richard is not the beast type, it’s not in him. He’s a coward, always was. He was more sinned upon than sinner when it came to his sister, you ask me. But the biggest tip-off was that Lena said none of your friends knew that you had taken her. But we know that’s a lie. Charlie knew what happened to Chantal, didn’t he?”

“He tell you that?”

“Nope.”

He rolled the cue ball against the far bumper again, caught it with a quick, violent snatch. “Then you’re guessing.”

“Sure I am. That’s what lawyers do, but I’m right.”

“If you have all the answers, kid, then what do you need from me? What are you doing here?”

“I originally came to bring Bryce home,” I said.

His blue eyes startled, his jaw slackened, his head tilted to the side. He was the very image of a man trying to figure out the impenetrable mystery of another man’s thoughts. He stuck his cigar in his mouth, sucked in a mouthful of smoke, and then he got it, all my worst suspicions, in one quick revelation he got it. And in that instant I could sense not the nervousness of guilt but the relaxation of someone who knows that his adversary doesn’t yet know enough to hurt him.

“So you don’t got all the answers do you, kid?”

“Some, but not all.”

“Information’s power, kid. What you don’t know will ruin you every time. You got me all wrong. I’m no pervert.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “But I no longer think Bryce is in danger. Which means I still don’t understand what happened to Chantal. I thought for sure you were abusing her, and it got out of hand, and you killed her, but I don’t think that anymore.”

“Course not. I just like kids, like having them around. And Chantal, she had something special about her. A toughness.”

“So why did she go missing?”

“Maybe she ran away.”

“She was too young.”

“Maybe you’re wrong about Lena.”

“No, not that either, because something bad happened. I know that for sure.”

“How do you know anything, you punk?”

“Because Charlie has the painting, which tells me all I need to know. You stole it as an insurance policy, as something to barter in case something went wrong, but somehow Charlie ended up with it. I asked you point-blank why Charlie, and you didn’t have an answer, but I do. You gave him the painting to keep him quiet. It’s why you want to keep him away from Philly now, buy him off, make sure he won’t talk. Because he knows.”

“What does he know, kid?”

“He knows all you did to create your new life. You said what you did with Chantal was heroic, and I bet you think of it that way still. You crossed the final line with her, didn’t you? First you decided to whore yourself to Mrs. LeComte. Then you decided to steal your way to a new life and to screw over your friends in the process. But all that wasn’t searing enough. The one act that sealed it all, the one heroic gesture that made it all happen, was Chantal. You killed her, I know you did. The only question was why. Why did you do it?”

Purcell rolled the ball one more time against the bumper, caught it when it bounced back, lifted it quickly and threw it at my head.

It would have dented my skull for sure, if he wasn’t a feeble old man with a paunch. I ducked, the ball slammed into a fancy wooden dartboard, darts went flying as the board tumbled to the ground.

The door sprang open, and both Reggie and Lou burst into the billiards room, Lou with his hands in some sort of martial-arts pose, Reggie with a pistol in his fist. It was meant to inspire fear in me, this grand show of force, except Lou’s toupee had slipped forward to cover his eyes, and Reggie, frankly, seemed more afraid of the gun than was I.

“What do you know about changing your life?” said Theodore Purcell. “Nothing. You’re a punk, adrift in the wind, and you always will be. You’re weak. You’re normal. You end up with nothing because that’s what you deserve.”

“We all end up getting what we deserve,” I said. “You mind, Reggie, pointing the gun in some other direction? The way you’re shaking, the gun is liable to slip out of your hand and fall on my foot.”

“Put the gun away, Reggie,” said Purcell. “Victor here is too small to kill.”

Reggie pointed the gun at me for a moment more before sticking it back into his jacket pocket.

“So what are you going to do now, kid?”

“I’m going back east,” I said. “I’m going to bring Charlie home. I’m going to get out the truth.”

“You don’t know what the hell the truth is.”

“He’ll tell me.”

“Maybe he will,” said Purcell. “If I don’t find him first. You should think about what I offered you. I’m giving you a chance to make something of yourself.”

“To take Reggie’s job, to follow you around like a toady and pull cheap pistols on your enemies?”

“I’m no toady,” said Reggie.

“Sure you are, kid,” said Theodore. “And don’t you forget it.”

“I’m a vice president,” said Reggie.

“A vice president in charge of toadying,” said Purcell. “But you’re still more than Victor here will ever be. Because Victor is a failure, born to it, sinking in it, doomed to end exactly as he started.”

“Let me ask you something, Theodore,” I said. “What’s it like to take that leap to become someone new and then find out the new you is a decrepit old monster?”

“You want to know how it feels, kid? When the wine is old and the food rich and a broad with fake tits has her face in my lap, let me tell you, it feels pretty damn good.”

Did it rankle?You bet it did.

What do you know about changing your life? had said Theodore Purcell. Nothing. You’re a punk, adrift in the wind, and you always will be. You’re weak. You’re normal. You end up with nothing because that’s what you deserve . Consider the source, I told myself. What lessons did I want to learn from a pornographer with a homicidal past and a crippled soul? But still it rankled. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because he was right, and I knew it in my gut.

The whole flight home from L.A., while Monica sat silent and morose beside me, I ruminated on the words Theodore Purcell had spit at me. Monica had met me at the airport with a silent nod and a poignant sadness in her moist eyes. What was I to tell her? How do you convince a believer that her faith is misplaced?

“How are you holding up?” I said to her as we waited to board.

“Let’s not talk, okay, Victor?”

“You got the right guy for that, Monica. If you want quiet, that’s what you’ll get. I can be as tight-lipped as the-”

“Ssssh,” she said, and I got the idea.

So we sat together in silence on the plane as Monica stared blankly out the window at the silver wing of the plane and I thought about all I hadn’t yet achieved in my life.

My entire career I had been whining about my lack of opportunity. Clients weren’t paying bills, opponents were judgment-proof, the million-dollar case had not come walking in my door. Boohoo. I had become a sob sister of defeat as my legal practice collapsed, my love life grew ever more pathetic, my apartment lay in ruins. But it wasn’t my fault, I told myself. Boohoo-hoo. Teddy Pravitz had taken control of his life and turned himself into Theodore Purcell, and whatever the results, at least he hadn’t sat back and whined. And the same with Stanford Quick, who had made his move and taken all that to which I had aspired, my job, my house, my dog, my SUV, my pretty blond wife, my life. My life. They had seized their opportunities, I had let mine wallow.